The purpose of this research was to analyze the working profile of dentists from the Family Health Program of some Municipal Districts of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil) in order to understand the way they handle the experience acquired with the work developed in that Program. The target population was composed of dentists from the FHP of Rio Grande do Norte. Thus we performed 21 interviews orientated by a semi-structured guidebook with open questions and identification data, beyond recording the speech of all the professionals. The main results found were: predominance in the female gender; the majority of dentists has no post graduation courses; in those few cases of dentists with some post-graduation a lack of correlation with Public or Collective Health was observed; the dentists interviewed present a profile directed to clinical activities; the dentists used to develop basic conducts and educative and preventive activities, even though the last two ones are carried out in an extremely traditional way (lectures and topical application of fluoride). The results indicate the existence of a necessity to lead them to reflect and redirect their practices. In order to reach this aim it must be considered as initial measure the investment and encouragement toward to permanent education as well as a close follow-up and evaluation of the actions developed by them.
Insertion; FHP; Professional formation